//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5 
// Story: Rainbow's Song 
// by DMDash71 
//------------------------------//

	A ground-bound viewer would have seen little.  Looking up at the right time, he might be lucky enough to see a cyan-colored pegasus flit past, barely discernable against the sky above.  The breeze that followed was muted, blocked by the branches of the trees overhead, but still fresh enough to make him glance about and wonder if a storm was coming.
The birds knew better.  They did their level best to get out of the way as Rainbow Dash hammered by overhead, missing the treetops by scant inches, a roaring tide of wind, leaves and other detritus swirling in her wake.  Her thoughts were in a muddle, but she kept the majority of her power pent up; a sonic rainboom was almost impossible in level flight, and downright dangerous at this low altitude, but she was angry and frustrated enough to almost try it.
Break every window in town.  Let them sing about that, if they want!
The thought made the blood pound harder in her temples, and she gave in to the fury.  With an incoherent cry, the Pegasus Pony pulled herself up into the vertical and shot straight upward, her wings hammering at the yielding air, trying to smash it, own it, crush it down and spit it out to push her higher and faster.  She could feel the pressure against her face, pulling her features back into a scowl.
How about this?  Is this good enough for you?  I’d like to see anypony else try it!
She shot through the cloud deck the other weather ponies had been working on and up into a late afternoon sky.  The sunlight, coming from a lower angle this time, was less blinding, and she had a clear view in all directions.  The work crews had finished up early, and she had the sky all to herself for the moment.
Good.
Still pushing up in a vertical zoom climb, but at a lower velocity now, she quit pushing for altitude and began altering the angles of her wings in an alternating pattern.  Left, left-right, left, right-left, left, left-right again, her straight climb altering into a spiraling pattern that didn’t require a roll of any kind.  Her speed bled away until she hung motionless in midair.  With a flick of a wing and her tail, she kicked over sideways and began falling earthward.  Waiting until she judged the speed was right, Rainbow Dash pulled up hard into another vertical climb, again slower than the first, and began the pattern again, but alternating the number of rights and lefts in the other direction.
Slowly, Rainbow danced with the sky.
She kept it up for over a half hour, the anger bleeding away with each circuit.  As she dropped lower and lower, the muscles in her wings began to ache, but she ignored it, powering back up for another round before dropping to the cloud deck and losing her sightlines.  “One more pass, girl, and then it’s time for chow.
Oh?  I thought you told Applejack you weren’t hungry.
“So what if I did?  Flying on a full stomach is asking for trouble.”
That isn’t the problem, and you know it.
“Oh, shut up,” she yelled, feeling a twinge in her right wing.  “Fine, quittin’ time, then.”  Rainbow ceased her wingbeats and spread her wings out to their full extension for a long, slow glide down.  She ducked through a gap in two of the clouds and angled herself over, heading for a landing in a small, grassy field on the edge of town.  Tilting her wings for maximum lift, she glided in gently, her hooves alighting lightly on the turf and trotting her to a stop.
“Hey, Rainbow Dash, wait up!”
Rainbow blinked, and glanced around behind her.  Oh, horseapples.  “Hey, squirt, what’s up?”  She peered up at the afternoon sky, a bit startled to realize just how late it had gotten.  “What are you doin’ out here all alone?”
Scootaloo coasted to a stop beside her, her tiny wings flapping furiously as she stopped, and then folding in neatly at her sides.  “I was watching you fly up there.  That was totally awwwesome!”  The orange filly removed the helmet from her head and shook out her mane with a grin.  “Do you think you could teach me that someday?”
Rainbow sighed.  “You’re a little bit small for it right now, Scoots.  And besides, it’s kinda secret.  You know, a special trick I came up with myself.”
“Oh, okay.”  Scootaloo looked crestfallen for a moment, and then brightened again.  “I bet you could totally get into the Wonderbolts with that trick!  You should show it to ‘em tomorrow night!”
Not likely, Rainbow Dash thought.  I might get laughed out of the ‘bolts for doing that ‘trick,’ but-  She blinked as the words connected.  “Whaddya mean, tomorrow night?  How’d you hear about that?”
“Are you kidding?  Pinkie-Pie told everypony about it.”  The little filly looked down for a moment.  “I wish I could come see you.  Or hear you, I mean.  Sweetie Belle can really sing cool, you know?  But I bet you could sing awesome!”
I am beginning, Rainbow thought wearily, to get very tired of that word.
“…and it’s just a bummer, you know?”
Rainbow Dash blinked, focusing on the filly’s words again.  “What’s that, Scoots?  Sorry, I was, uh, just practicing my song in my head, you know.”  She forced a grin.  “Gotta make sure it’s extra cool and all.”
Scootaloo fluttered her wings in delight at the thought, and then repeated herself.  “I said that Apple Bloom’s gonna be there, and Sweetie Belle, and I wish I could go, too.  Cutie Mark Crusader…um…Music Critics!”  The filly giggled to herself.  “But I don’t really know anyone else there, and Rarity said they’re only allowed to bring one guest, ‘cause it’s standing room only.”  She frowned.  “Whatever that means.  Who sits down at a show?”
“Lyra, maybe.”
Scootaloo giggled at the mental image, and then subsided.  “Anyway, I don’t know anypony who’s goin’, so I can’t be there.  It’s a bummer, like I said.”
Rainbow Dash looked down at the filly for a moment.  “Tell you what, Scoots,” she said without thinking.  “I’ll make you a deal.”
“About what?”
Rainbow leaned down and transfixed the filly in her violet gaze.  “You promise not to tell anypony about my new trick, and you can come with me to the party.  Deal?”
Scootaloo’s eyes opened almost impossibly wide.  “No way!  You mean it?”
“Yes, way.  And yes, I mean it.  But I want your promise on this, kiddo.”
Flabbergasted almost beyond speech, the little filly nodded rapidly.  “I swear.”  Her wings fluttered for a moment, and then lay still again.  “How come, though?”
Rainbow frowned.  “How come what?”
“How come it’s a secret?  I still promise not to tell and all, I just wish you could show it to me.”
“It’s tough to explain.”  Rainbow Dash sighed.  “Look, sometimes you have something really special, you know, something that’s all yours.”
Scootaloo nodded.  “Like my scooter!”
“Exactly.”  The cyan pegasus flicked her tail for a moment.  “It belongs just to you, and you’re really great with it.  It makes you feel special, you know?”
“Yeah.  Like your sonic rainboom!”
Rainbow Dash laughed quietly.  “Nah.  ‘booms are cool, but they’re all for show.  They’re really tough, too.  Everypony can ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ about it, and next thing you know, they want to see it again.  Too much of that, and it takes the shine off of it, doesn’t make it as special as it was, to them or to you.”  She shook her head.  “That’s why you always see ponies like the Wonderbolts doing new tricks, because people get tired of the same old thing.”
Scootaloo shook her head.  “I don’t get it.”
Rainbow Dash crouched down until her eyes were level with the filly’s.  “Scoots…that trick I did, it might look cool, but…that was just for me.  I only do it when I feel sad, or angry, or upset, because it makes me feel better, and it’s all my own.  Nobody else’s.”
The little filly blinked at her for a moment, and then her eyes were suddenly bright with tears.  “I didn’t mean to spy on you, Rainbow Dash, honest.  I just thought it looked really cool, and I wished, you know, I could do something cool, too…”  Her voice began quavering and breaking up.
“Hey, whoa, slow down, kiddo.”  Rainbow unselfconsciously rubbed the filly’s tears away with her nose.  “No need to cry over it.  You promised, and I don’t have to worry anymore, because my secret’s safe with you, right?”
Scootaloo sniffed and hiccuped a couple of times before smiling shakily.  “Yeah, duhh!”
Rainbow Dash perked an eyebrow.  “Watch it, squirt.  That’s my line.”